Creator, of anything and everythng

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So I mentioned I gave in and bought a drawing tablet and ArtRage and got stuck in… Years ago, to pass the time, I used to draw anime and thought that might be a brilliant place to start. I took to it quite well, able to work with layers from my previous work. I signed up to the Deviant Art community as DouglasDigiArt and I cannot stress enough how much of an inspirational community deviant art is, yes there’s your admirers and followers, but feedback is rip if you just ask for it, some really good in depth conversations if you’re willing to look for them. I’m not on there as much as I should be but whenever I needed inspiration to start a digital drawing, this is where I went.. because digital art requires more planning than painting.

I tend to start with a connection, such as When in Rome 2016 is from a photograph of my time in Rome in March, 2016. This tree was on the walk from the Colosseum to The Palatine Hill. It was behind a gate and untouchable and all I wanted to do was find a way to get to it… I even tried once I was in Palatine Hill but I still couldn’t get to it! Ha!

Some works I have produced are (starting old to new):

When in Rome 2016

Peace of Mind 2016

Peace of Mind stems from my everyday, anybody who knows me personally, knows I love my headphones with music blaring and I have to complete this ritual at least once a day or I feel offset.

Bajan Gyal is a tribute to my roots and also a redraw of of one of my earlier drawings in 2010:

Bajan Gyal 2016

Tenebrosity 2016

Others can be found on DouglasDigiArt and I will of course add more to other blog posts as they arise.

What programs do you work on? I occasionally use Sketchbook Pro and if I can help it, I avoid Photoshop – too complicated!

Do you have connections to your work? Do you meticulously plan? Or just go with the flow?

In my previous blog I went through how I knew I had to create something, all of the time, at any spare time, and then the worry sank in…

I left uni with the go and self drive of any graduate, all the plans laid out for how I was going to become this full-time artist and get to London.

I got the opportunity for a studio space with the wonderful 24WA and I was entering local exhibitions with all my previous work. Great right? The problem was, life, it was an hour bus journey and I was only getting a few hours in at the weekend. And while the rates are extremely good with them, it wasn’t worth it for a few hours on a Saturday because public transport didn’t run as late as I needed to and finished work 6pm most days.

I completed a studio exhibition with them – wet work as usual – and found myself packing up yet again. While my network is the most amazing and supportive group of people you will ever meet, I couldn’t have them adding layers of varnish or writing repetitive obsessive numbers on my work. Add much as they would have loved to!

I’d be lying if I said this work didn’t get put on hold, and it breaks my heart, because I am aware it had a wonderful reception, but I couldn’t accept the responses first hand because I simply couldn’t get to the exhibition because I was at work. And while my room is quite big, it’s not big enough to be a bedroom and an art studio… painting got put on hold, because the smallest I work is 4ft x 8ft and as you can see, it gets messy!

So while I waited for the studio of my dreams to pop up locally, I remembered my promise to myself to create anything and everything.

I bought myself a drawing tablet and ArtRage and got to it…

I was really impressed with the effects you can achieve and haven’t turned back while I patiently wait for the right opportunity… because some things cannot be forced and I reiterate…

It could also be a case of the fact that I am not yet prepared to deal with the obsession of those numbers. Because those numbers are significant dates of my personal life. But before I risk sounding like I’m making excuses for not painting, I’ll stop rambling and get to the point..

I am highlighting that something good comes of the things you aren’t able to control. Because sometimes other priorities come into play, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you cannot do something else in the interim that satisfies the need to create… yes, it may not be your grand master plan, but what grand master plan comes overnight?

Many artists end up with thousands of pages of ideas in their sketchbooks and only send maybe 20 reach the public and it doesn’t bother me that these have ended up there.

I let go of my worry of ‘what now’ and let things take their own path, taking a cue from my very own artwork and letting things grow the way they are intended.

As a result, I have never been happier, I feel challenged, learning new mediums and getting stuck in to the many different types of art in the world.